My Glaring Continuity Errors.

craigbowman

craigbowman

Veteran
Ever make any that don't get caught? People keep telling me how much others don't notice that I always do because I'm too involved.

For example during a shoot on a weekend last year it was severely overcast and threatening rain. I was the DP and had set everything up to try and still make it appear to have some sun present. It was also being shot in 2.40:1 and the trees in the background provided a strong visual weight on the left of the frame. This was also a point in the script where the second act technically begins and I wanted to do something which alluded to the rise of a curtain on the second act. After some discussion with the director we decided to ad lib a shot and use some of the handy hanging branches and leaves with a small crane shot to act as our curtain facsimilie. I had the actors cued to enter with the first one to walk in from the left at the end of the crane down move, towards the more visually empty area to the right of the frame and the second to come in straight ahead but around the right side of the camera and I'd do a mild reframe right. After the first take it started to rain. The rain just didn't stop either so we had to get the matching reverse almost a week later when the weather matched better. I was so dissappointed with not being able to get the time to handle the lighting the way I wanted and the scripty was one of those critical people not present, nobody picked up the continuity issue. It wasn't until I test cut the two together and finally settled down about the bad lighting on the reverse that it stood out like a sore thumb.

More than half the people I showed it to claim they never noticed but it just screams out at me. I came across the raw test clip the other day which is all MOS and thought I'd post and see how quickly everyone notices. If any of you have examples of stuff you've personally shot with continuity problems, post them, but only if you are the one that shot it!

 
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craigbowman said:
Take another look at how the towel is carried in the two shots. Over the right arm in first. Over both arms and in front in second.
Click to expand...

I didn't even notice the differences in how the towels were carried. I don't think an audience would notice or even care. What is going to make the difference is really not these two cuts, but what the next cut is.
 
Her hand, audience will notice, believe me.PEople shouldnt encourage mistakes like this, come on.
Looks like different day for me.So now you know its important and you learned on mistake, i think its a good lesson.You would keep attention to details like this next time.
Its actors fault not yours tho, they should know that its important to remember these details so editing wouldnt cause problems.
 
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Oh come on! First off the weather isn't an issue. Everything looks fairly even between the two shots.

2nd, as for the towel thing, no average person would ever pick up on that. So it's a minor incontinuity, but that's the fun stuff that those "in the know" might catch.
 
weather wasn't an issue at all when watching, and like others noted, the average person - whom you're really doing this for - won't notice the towel continuity problem unless they're over-analytical nerds like those of us in the business. try watching old John Wayne movies, people's hands/gestures are off entirely from shot to shot and those movies were still wildly successful - just think of the towel as your own little secret ;)

Cheers,
Adam
 
craigbowman said:
Take another look at how the towel is carried in the two shots. Over the right arm in first. Over both arms and in front in second.
Click to expand...

Yes, I noticed that... I was outraged that you could commit such a heinous felony of continuity...

But it's not on the order of say, the girl's blouse changing color, or pattern... And in some sense, we don't know exactly how long 'the cut' cut out 'real time'...

In one of the film books I have, there's an analysis of "Serpico"(1973) for some number of scenes. One is where Serpico is greeted by his family after graduation from police academy. The sequence has a couple of continuity errors, such as people in one shot, not in the next, or animated in one, not in the next, etc... but the point of the exercise was to note that 'you the viewer' are following Serpico, and the emotional energy of the greeting, not analyzing minute details of 'differences' between shots.

So, in your case, the viewer has an emotional connection with the two women walking, 'what are they say, where are they going, what are they going to do', etc... and not whether they have a towel in one position, and something different in the next shot.
 
I didn't notice anything, and I wouldn't have minded if I had noticed, it's not a big one. I know a guy who shot part of a scene of his short film in the morning, and when the actors came back after lunch the lead was wearing completely different clothes. A suit in the morning, jeans and a hooded top in the afternoon. If you can believe it they didn't notice and shot the rest of the scene. The director only noticed it during the edit. That's a continuity error that can not be forgiven. It's good to notice mistakes, preferably as it's happening, but don't drive yourself insane over them because as long as the film is working emotionally the audience will not notice.
 
The funny thing is--the biggest "jump" a viewer's brain needs to smooth over to make this cut work is not a mistake at all. Imagine showing this to someone who's never seen a movie before. By far the element that's most likely to shatter the illusion of continuity for this watcher is the way the towel woman goes from screen left to screen right as it cuts from the rear to the front. Not the towel placement or the lighting changes. And yet this is a totally accepted and codified cut--there probably hasnt been a movie made in the last 25 years that doesn't have a cut like this. Just goes to show that in some real, fundamental way a lot of them "movie magic" actually happens on some weird neurological level.

I do get the concern here is the nitty-gritty of producing a quality show and that this is airy-fairy stuff. I just thought it was interesting.
 
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